


school night

by oneworldaway



Category: Sarah Jane Adventures
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-29
Updated: 2013-09-29
Packaged: 2017-12-27 22:41:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/984468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneworldaway/pseuds/oneworldaway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rani just sifts through his life like it’s her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	school night

**Author's Note:**

> Written sometime last year, and posted on Tumblr a couple of months ago. I ship it like burning, you guys.

She’s on his doorstep after dark, mumbling something about retrieving the CD he borrowed, and he thinks he hopes she’ll never leave. He doesn’t want to finish his homework. He doesn’t want to go to bed. All he wants is this, talking, laughing, Rani rolling her eyes and getting annoyed and him secretly loving every second of it. He loves winding her up and pushing her buttons. And he loves watching her figure things out, as she solves some extraterrestrial mystery or a math problem on a test, and he loves running by her side when they’re off saving the world, and he loves it when she laughs, really laughs, at his ultimately terrible jokes.

So he hopes this moment never ends and his mother never points out the time and Rani never has to go home and finish her homework and go to bed and be somewhere else for nine hours. He’s getting ahead of himself, contemplating getting up early and showing up at her house for breakfast. He’d smirk at the headmaster as Mrs Chandra ushered him into the kitchen and shoved a plate in front of him, and Rani would blink sleepily at him, her hair just slightly mussed from sleep, shake her head, and sit down across from him still in her pajamas, because in the end she wouldn’t really care. He’s all ready to do this just so they can start their day together one hour sooner, and he’s so wrapped up in it he almost forgets that they’re still together now. And then he notices her staring at him, just slightly exasperated, mostly perplexed. She grabs him by the arm and pulls him upstairs to fetch that CD, and suddenly they’re in his room and it’s barely even night yet and here he was, practically salivating over imaginary bacon and eggs. But it’s 9:54 and he’s in his room with Rani.

She doesn’t wait for him to volunteer the CD’s whereabouts, and digs through his things like she does it every day. Like it isn’t one of the few times she’s ever been in his bedroom, like she’s perfectly at home here, between the stacks of comics and sketchbooks on his shelves, underneath the hoodie abandoned on the floor. The only other person who’s gone through his stuff with this sort of ease is his mother; even Luke, who’s slept over in this room and made himself at home, stands politely in front of anything that grabs his interest until granted the permission to pick it up. Rani just sifts through his life like it’s her own. It scares him a little, because life hasn’t exactly taught him to let people in like that. But he realizes she’s already there, she’s always been there, and in fact it’d be stranger if she  _weren’t_  there. It’s like a fan you never notice until it breaks, and suddenly the room is quieter than ever. He hadn’t noticed she’d gotten so close, but if she left now, it wouldn’t feel quite right. He’d want things back to normal.

It isn’t too hard to find the CD, but the minutes pass and she’s still there, sitting in his chair now, Clyde stretched out on his bed. His hands are up behind his head and he feels far more relaxed than he should, after 10 with a girl in his room. But it’s  _Rani_ , which makes it normal and alright, yet also all the more exhilirating. They talk about school like any other pair of kids, like they didn’t spend their weekend chasing down aliens. (There’s a sheet ripped out of his current sketchbook tacked to his bulletin board that reads,  _Days Since Last Exploding Slitheen: 32._  It’s been a lot longer now, but he never bothered to change it after Rani pinned it up there the last time she was here.) He’s so at ease he almost falls asleep while she’s talking to him, and then his mother’s in the doorway, and it’s 10:15, and Mr Chandra called to say he’s walking over there now. Clyde would’ve walked her home without hesitation, but he has a parent worrying about him, too, so it’s probably for the best.

No matter how long the moment is extended, he still never wants it to end. They’re back in his doorway and it’s as if they never left, and he’s back to contemplating breakfast and pajamas and messy hair. He notices she’s tilted her head and she’s staring at him again, but differently this time, like she’s working it out. Like she’s planning out how to come downstairs all hair brushed and uniformed, but not unhappy to see him. He feels his heart do something he wouldn’t feel very  _cool_  trying to put into words, and he’s about to ask her what she’s thinking when the headmaster materializes on his front steps.

He finishes his homework, and he goes to bed. He knows he’ll get up when he always does and he’ll see Rani on their way to school, like he always does. Bacon and eggs and blinking just might haunt his dreams, though, and he’s almost slipped into one when his mother slips into his room to give him a kiss goodnight, like she did when he was little.

“Save the flirting for  _after_  the studying next time, okay?”

He feigns pretending to be asleep, doesn’t bother to keep a straight face, but he also doesn’t bother denything anything. He smiles at the ghost of Rani in his chair and, in the safe silence of night, lets her slip into his life and root herself there.


End file.
